lipogram

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A writing composed of words not having a certain letter or letters; -- as in the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus there was no A in the first book, no B in the second, and so on.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A writing from which all words containing a particular letter are omitted, as the several books of the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus, in the first of which, it is said, there was no A, in the second no B, etc.

Inspired by the rulebound literature of Oulipo (the French coterie of poets), Eunoia consists of a univocal lipogram—a story written in five chapters, each of which uses only one vowel exclusively (the first chapter using only A, the second chapter using only E, etc.)

I filled out an Ask Me Another contestant quiz the other day, and the last questions asks you to write a lipogram omitting o's. I've known the concept for a long time, but I think having written one now, the word for the concept will stay in my head, especially since I ended it with "That's my lip_gram."

Is it not related to liposuction? Lipo means fat, like lipids. Looks like the Greek ancestor was leipogrammátos meaning 'leaving out a letter.' What a difference an e makes.

"That was just grand, John, but I was thinking along a path varying a bit from that. You know that Man’s brain is actually all of him. All parts of his body, as you follow down from his brain, act simply as aids to it. His nostrils bring him air; his mouth is for masticating his food; his hands and limbs furnish ability for manipulation and locomotion; and his lungs, stomach and all inward organs function only for that brain. If you look at a crowd you say that you saw lots of folks: but if you look at a man bathing in a pond; and if that man sank until only that part from his brow upward was in sight, you might say that you saw nobody; only a man s scalp. But you actually saw a man, for a man is only as big as that part still in sight. Now a child’s skull, naturally, is not so big as a man’s; so its brain has no room for all that vast mass of thoughts which adult brains contain. It is, so to say, in a small room. But, as days and months go by, that room will push its walls outward, and that young brain gradually fill up all that additional room. So, looking for calm, cool thinking in a child is as silly as looking for big, juicy plums amongst frail spring blossoms. Why, oh, why don’t folks think of that? You know what foolish sounding things Julius was always asking, as a child. ‘How can just rubbing a match light it?’ ‘Why is it dark at night?’ ‘Why can’t a baby talk?’ But, you and I, John, didn’t laugh at him. No, not for an instant. And now look at our Julius and our Kathlyn; both famous, just through all that asking; and our aid. John, God could put Man into this world, full-grown. But God don’t do so; for God knows that, without a tiny hand to hold, a tiny foot to pat, tiny lips to kiss, and a tiny, warm, wriggling body to hug, Man would know nothing but work.�?

A phrase that is missing certain letters: e.g., "By hook or by crook." has no 'e's. Georges Perec,wrote an entire book, La Disparition, without using any 'e's...along with a number of other unique works.